Superintendent changes sweep local districts

Outgoing superintendent Dr. John M. Folks (center) leaves a board meeting on his last day for Northside Independent School District on Tuesday, June 26, 2012. Folks has served as superintendent for NISD for nearly a decade before announcing his retirement back in December 2011.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Outgoing Harlandale ISD superintendent Robert Jaklich listens to accolades during a sendoff party on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. Jaklich leaves under some turmoil with school board members despite his strong community support.

Photo By Mike Fisher

Six school districts have seen a change in superintendents in the past 12 months. Four — all in the inner city — left after tensions with their school boards.

Since last summer, six of the area's largest school districts — Northside, North East, San Antonio, Harlandale, Edgewood and South San — have changed superintendents.

Some retired, some found new opportunities, but most — all of them at San Antonio's four major inner-city school districts — left mainly because of waning support from their school boards.

Two districts, SAISD and Harlandale, are still months away from finding permanent replacements.

The tone and manner of such departures, even in such details as going-away parties, can be a window to a district's future. If it exposes board tensions, it can limit the quality of applicants for the job, complicate things for a successor and rattle teachers and employees, experts said.

Losing a superintendent is “disruptive and can really impact morale and momentum at a district,” said Julian Treviño, a former SAISD board president who teaches at the University of Texas at San Antonio.In a single week in June, superintendents at two districts that have racked up accolades in recent years, Northside's John Folks and Harlandale's Robert Jaklich, showed flip sides of the coin in exiting the job.

Folks announced his retirement in December and his board OK'd a goodbye bash for him on district property in May, for which donors raised $14,000.

Employees were encouraged to attend. All trustees gave him a standing ovation at his final board meeting in June before his successor, Brian Woods, took over.

Jaklich resigned in May to take the top job at Victoria ISD. He said Victoria's board welcomed him with “open arms” but never publicly blamed Harlandale's board for his departure — though friends and supporters did, including Mayor Julián Castro on his Facebook page and at Jaklich's last board meeting.

Jaklich didn't attend the next two meetings before leaving. Trustees never gave him a unified goodbye.

After a failed campaign to get Jaklich to stay, some of them raised about $400 to throw him a party at an American Legion hall.

Jaklich declined to have a party on district grounds, Harlandale ISD spokeswoman Leslie Garza said. That's because he feared retribution against employees who showed up and wanted to avoid more controversy, trustee Tomas Uresti said.

Some employees who attended said they got voicemails from unlisted numbers discouraging them from going. Anonymous flyers, emails and phone calls are a fixture of Harlandale politics.

“It's unfortunate that that happened,” Treviño said. “What boards and communities need to remember is that all this behavior can set the stage for who comes in next. It can repel someone that's going to be good for the district.”

During Folks' and Jaklich's tenures, the state rated Northside and Harlandale as “recognized” for academic achievement. Both won the highly competitive H-E-B Excellence in Education award for best large district in Texas.

The Education Resource Group, a research firm that ranks the state's 200 largest districts, considers them the two best local districts, putting Harlandale at No. 14 and Northside at 21.

Northside is mostly suburban, has more money and about seven times the student population of inner-city, property-poor Harlandale.

“Despite different socioeconomic demographics, their performance is identical,” said Paul Haeberlen, president of Education Resource Group. “So I don't understand why the reaction (over their superintendents' departure) would be so different. Something is wrong with that. It's just weird.”

Comings and goings

Last year, North East ISD Superintendent Richard Middleton announced his retirement after 21 years at the helm. The district was doing well by most academic and financial standards. A few months later, the board voted unanimously to hire the interim superintendent selected from within, Brian Gottardy, citing their faith in his ability to keep up the momentum.

Meanwhile, trustees at Edgewood were searching for a replacement for Superintendent Elizabeth Garza, who was hired on a 4-3 vote and resigned after not being able to win over the full board in her three years at the top.

Middleton had a jubilant, lavish goodbye party. Garza's was small and muted.

Edgewood trustees hired Jose Cervantes, Alpine ISD's superintendent, who had led his district to high state academic ratings. It was a 7-0 vote, which board president Joseph Guerra said would help get everyone on the same track. Trustees were tested when some teachers openly criticized some of Cervantes' new policies and staff cuts in February. The board stood by Cervantes.

Then there's South San. Last year, its board split 4-3 over firing superintendent Ron Durbon for not more thoroughly investigating pornography found on district computers. That same night it selected Linda Zeigler, a vice principal at Frank Madla Elementary, as interim superintendent, also on a 4-3 vote.

The board and Zeigler worked together, making $5 million in budget cuts, but trustees passed her over for the permanent job, picking Rebecca Robinson, an assistant superintendent at the Eagle Pass school district. The same night, they had Zeigler on the agenda to be disciplined for her behavior toward a trustee, but took no action. Zeigler's future at South San is still unclear.

Board president Helen Madla said she hoped the trustees can start anew.

Robinson was an external hire, rare for South San, and the vote was unanimous after one trustee who had not supported her changed her mind. At a welcoming party, they applauded Robinson, and mariachi students serenaded her in the boardroom.

SAISD Superintendent Robert Durón this year resigned to take a job with the Texas Education Agency after six years at the helm. Trustees had given him a negative evaluation; discord between them had become increasingly open.

Sylvester Perez, a recently retired Midland ISD superintendent, was tapped as the interim leader, but he has no plans to seek the job permanently. Divided 4-3 on its vote last month to hire a search firm, the board wants to pick a superintendent by January.

At Harlandale, trustees last month named Rey Madrigal, the assistant superintendent for operations, as its new interim superintendent, to serve for up to six months.

Madrigal is a 30-year district veteran. He graduated from Harlandale High School, where years later he ended up as principal and helped flip its state accountability rating from “academically unacceptable” to “recognized” in four years.

That might bode well with trustees, some of whom were disappointed when Jaklich was selected because he wasn't Latino, as are 97 percent of the district's students.

After he was picked, Madrigal praised Jaklich and attended his low-key farewell party, sharing pizza with four trustees and about 75 teachers, administrators, parents, and students.

Jaklich, in his usual pep talk mode, thanked attendees “for your excellence” and for proving that Harlandale was “not too small for big dreams.”

Impact on education

In Texas, pay is often a factor when superintendents decide to go, but more frequently it's because of their relationship with their board, said University of North Texas education professor Jimmy Byrd, who has surveyed them across the state. Nationwide, urban school superintendents stay in one job an average of only 3.5 years, but suburban and rural district superintendents tend to last longer, at five to seven years, he said.

“The greater concern is the impact of all that discord on the staff and the quality of education, as those things are adversely affected when a board is squabbling,” said John Horn, who served 23 years as superintendent of two Dallas-area districts and is now a consultant for state and national organizations such as the Texas Association of School Administrators.

“Over a period of time, a dysfunctional board — and the decisions they make — will lead to a dysfunctional school district,” he said.

Ultimately, it's the community that has to hold school boards accountable for using their greatest power: hiring, working with or firing a superintendent, said Middleton, who attended NEISD schools before working his way up to run the district.

“I'm just becoming very impatient seeing this cycle repeat itself, as I have watched it for a long time in San Antonio,” ,” he said. “It could one day push some to consider consolidating some of these districts, as they are ultimately jeopardizing the future of our educational system.”

Treviño, the former SAISD trustee, now trains boards and superintendents nationally on how to work together. Any new leader must confront a district's history, but the challenges at hand should outweigh the politics, he said.

“We have major struggles ahead with dropout rates, new state standardized testing, and state budget cuts,” Treviño said. “They all need to keep their eye on what's important and that they are there for the kids.”